Indonesia: Anti-LGBT Crackdown Fuels Health Crisis

(Jakarta, July 2, 2018) – Indonesian authorities are fueling an HIV epidemic through complicity in discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government’s failure to halt arbitrary and unlawful raids by police and militant Islamists on private LGBT gatherings has effectively derailed public health outreach efforts to vulnerable populations.

The 70-page report, “‘Scared in Public and Now No Privacy’: Human Rights and Public Health Impacts of Indonesia’s Anti-LGBT Moral Panic,”documents how hateful rhetoric has translated into unlawful action by Indonesian authorities – sometimes in collaboration with militant Islamist groups – against people presumed to be LGBT. Based on in-depth interviews with victims and witnesses, health workers, and activists, this report updates a Human Rights Watch August 2016 report that documented the sharp rise in anti-LGBT attacks and rhetoric in Indonesia that began that year. It examines major incidents between November 2016 and June 2018, and the far-reaching impact of this anti-LGBT “moral panic” on the lives of sexual and gender minorities and the serious consequences for public health in the country.